The typical Bujinkan Shidoshi is out of shape and terribly scared when you mention Randori or any type of free style sparring. That's why the lunge punching role players give the art a bad name because they just want to show up to class and play dress up.

If you can find a superior core group, the art is well worth dedicating your time to. It works despite what people may think. The negativity surrounding it is mainly due to lazy imbeciles hiding behind the guise of being "2 D34DLY to SP4R W1TH U!"

You'll find with most martial arts, it all comes down to the person practicing them and how hard/intelligently they train.

So how can I find one of these "superior core groups"? Presumably you believe you're working with one. What makes your group different from all the other Bujinkan training groups? What is your group doing that others aren't? Or maybe it's the other way around: what are the other groups doing wrong that you're avoiding?

So how can I find one of these "superior core groups"? Presumably you believe you're working with one. What makes your group different from all the other Bujinkan training groups? What is your group doing that others aren't? Or maybe it's the other way around: what are the other groups doing wrong that you're avoiding?

And if you say, "sparring"; do you have video to share?

I don't know where you'd find one, that's why I said "If".

What makes my group different? Well first and foremost no one involved does this as a hobby, every member is either former/active military, law enforcement or in my case law enforcement/MMA.

So #1: is motive. ( staying alive and not getting taken out by multiple adversaries/random BJJ trash )

#2: Physical fitness is mandatory. I'm not talking about these weekend warriors who think they're in shape because they go to the gym twice and eat one dingdong instead of two. Majority of us have a strict 5 day lifting regimen, 3-4 days running regimen and training is about 4 days a week also.

Once again this is not some random set of "dojo rules" we're a core group of people, and this is just the fitness standard we've agreed on after seeing our fellow officers get torn apart and seeing friends go down in the cage because they thought they knew what they were doing.

#3: I'm not going to list how this is done because I don't need some random Booj lurkers trying to emulate me and pretend like they actually hold a candle, but techniques are broken down and sorted in specific ways, entire Ryu-ha are learned and studied but training specific and functional techniques are key. The problem with most of the other groups is that it's a random theme or move every night and no one learns or develops skill in any one technique. So you have 20 something people doing half assed versions of 30 moves they never really learned correctly. [ See a problem there? ]

Also somethings don't translate to certain situations. I can't use happaken or shakoken in a match, but I can certainly use happaken in transition to a clinch in a realistic situation. Same with shakoken, last time I checked IL had an issue with clawing through flesh in the cage.

I am starting to ramble here so I'll try to sum this up.

The majority of people in the Bujinkan are out of shape, have no real combat experience [ of their own choosing! because they're scared and want to dress up and be feudal figments of the past ], don't train their techniques properly or long enough, and never test them against resisting opponents. Once again I completely understand not every technique can be used full force without injury but guess what? A lot of them can and do work.

We do the opposite of the above issues.

As for video taping sparring? Electronic equipment isn't allowed in the main building we train at due to security regulations but in the future we'd like to expand to some different training areas or do some filming in outdoor terrain. I suppose if you're super curious and ever in the Chi, you could hit me up and we can roll together. I don't hate other Bujinkan practioners, I'm just really sick and tired of people pretending to be something they aren't. [ Donk, Hayes, 75% of the Gaijin Shihan ] I would take a fight with any of those fruit loops on any day of any year.

P.S Oh and how could I forget the likes of the ass-juice run off collective of Antony Cummins and Christa Jacobson. Throw these imbeciles up into that list also.

P.P.S It may seem like I am extremely negative but that's really not the essence of what I am trying to get across, text is hard to translate how someone really feels about a specific situation so just a heads up, I don't think I'm some demon resurrecting the ways of the past... I'm just annoyed with how things were done and decided to change that.

There's a training event from 1987 on Youtube where Doron and Hatsumi tell the group there ( around the 17 minute mark ) that they need to start actually training and utilizing the strikes the way they are meant to be, my feelings are very similar.